MEET OUR NEW MISSISSIPPI ADVOCATE!
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MEET OUR NEW MISSISSIPPI ADVOCATE! •
The Health Not Prisons Collective (the Collective) is an intersectional national initiative launched in 2020 by Counter Narrative Project (CNP), the Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN), Sero Project, Transgender Law Center (TLC), and the U.S. Caucus of People Living with HIV (the HIV Caucus) — longtime collaborators led by, and accountable to, communities most affected by HIV criminalization in the United States.
Our strategy incorporates education and training; grassroots and grasstops organizing; policy analysis and advocacy; legal intervention; and narrative change designed to shift discourses about HIV, risk, blame, responsibility, and the role of the carceral state, including detention, centering racial and gender justice.
WE COMMIT TO:
Significantly advance HIV decriminalization efforts in at least eight priority states;
Expand legal resources in the U.S. South and build powerful case law through litigation work;
Develop a network of Black attorneys to address HIV decriminalization;
Elevate HIV criminalization as a priority for intersecting movement groups focused on mass incarceration and policing;
Deploy compelling cultural productions and media interventions that shift narratives of blame and punishment;
Sustain a robust, grassroots decriminalization response that centers and elevates leadership by impacted communities: Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), people living with HIV, people involved in the sex trade, substance users, imprisoned and detained people, people who access harm reduction services, immigrant and migrant populations, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people, people with disabilities, and no- and low-income people.
Contribute to visionary organizing and movement building for abolition of the criminalization of sex work, drug use, and imprisonment/detention-based economies; ending mass incarceration; and ensuring sanctuary and safety for all immigrants
